Descent
by Mistoffolees'girl89
Summary: COMPLETE! As madness and a secret take over the four sons of Old Deuteronomy, the youngest of the brothers chronicles his siblings' fall into insanity. Rated M for violent or disturbing content
1. Chapter 1 Difference

**Prologue: Need**

_I cannot help but feel compelled to write down this account. Someone needs to know, to remember. The days until I too become like my brothers is fast approaching and I feel terrified of what will happen when the pact is complete. The Humans soon will know of us, and perhaps it will be one of them who reads this, after tearing it from the paws of a Jellicle foolishly protecting it with their life. I can only hope whoever finds it will understand._

**Chapter 1: Difference**

It was always obvious that we were different. From the moment we were born, we were set apart. Our scent or our size, our looks or our laughter, it all gave us away.

Munkustrap, the leader. Tugger the playboy. Macavity, the madman, and I, the magician. No one told us we were different, we all just figured it out in time. We were the sons of Old Deuteronomy, but to us, that meant little. Our father had scads of kittens, all running around us, raised with us, but knowing we were different all the same.

We were the only kits born singly to the old leader. Until us, every pairing had lead to at least two kittens, but we had been utterly alone. We all took after our mothers' far more than any other of our half siblings, and all of us, in some form or another, had magic.

Macavity was always the most powerful, or at least I have been lead to understand. He was old enough to be my grandfather by the time I came along. He had a handle on his magic by the time he was three. He could levitate at four, and by the time he had reached ten, he could make lighting and fire dance for him. It seemed as if Old Deuteronomy had finally produced a suitable heir. Of course, that was before.

It had always been apparent that Macavity was crazy. Of course, back then, he wasn't a danger. He had done terrible things, when in the throes of his mind, but always made up for it ten times over. The tribe was willing to accept him, despite this fault.

Then came the war. Pollicles; a breed of dog who, like us, could take on a humanoid form, had been biding their time for years, when suddenly, they struck. According to the histories, the scattered tribes had little defense against them. They attacked in Pollicle form, catching us off guard and killing many. Macavity lead the resistance, beating them back and staging hundreds of successful counter-attacks. During this time, according to Grizabella, one of the few survivors of that age, Macavity's ginger coat grew more red with every completed kill. His face grew fiercer, his heart harder. He began to do more terrible things, but he was keeping the tribes alive, and no one cat could say anything.

Then, everything changed. During the final battle, the Jellicles were winning. Macavity slunk from the heat of battle, finding where the Pollicles had hidden away their pups. He burned them all alive.

He had not known the Pollicles too had magic. For months, kits had been disappearing, one or two at a time. They were thought long dead. We had thought wrong. Among the charred remains of the pups, lay the missing kits. The magical disguises had shielded them only enough that they could look into the eyes of their killer before they too fell dead.

Grizabella was fighting. She said that in Macavity's screams of realization, you could hear his mind snapping.

War had taken the first of the brothers.


	2. Chapter 2 Semblance

**Chapter 2: Semblance **

Munkustrap was born before the war, when Macavity was about twenty-five. Grizabella left him to fight, and for reasons that shall forever remain her own, never returned until the night she gained the new Jellicle life. Tugger was born seven years later, to a queen named Malenasnow. She died soon after. He barely remembered her, or Macavity. Munkustrap's and Tugger's magics were more subtle than their elder brother's. Munkustrap could command, could hold true, hypnotize and entreat with a mere stare. He never used his power unless he absolutely needed to, and so few of the cats ever figured out he even had power.

Tugger's powers lay in glamour and persuasion, for the most part. He could change his appearance slightly, though from what I understand, all he did with this was lighten his mane and give that ridiculous curl to his hair. Tugger also had a latent power of future visions, one that showed up whenever it felt like it, and often gave him nightmares. Once I was born, and my own powers came to the fore, everyone had already accepted Tugger as he was, and assumed the change in appearance had been due to entry into tom-hood, and forgotten about his magic. Tugger was by far the brother I was closest too, both in age and in friendship. I often helped him through the nightmares.

It happened when I was about twenty-four, Tugger twelve years my elder. Old Deuteronomy had died the year before, and Munkustrap, Tugger, and I were leading the tribe as a triumvirate. In our time, the tribe had prospered. Multiple births were common, the toms were fat, the queens sleek and well fed. Three other tribes had melded with us, and we numbered near two hundred. Life was good, for a time.

My mate had just born our second litter, and with a total of eight young kits at home, I could no longer expend the energy to stop my brother's nightmares. I will always regret that night.

A soul piercing scream awakened everyone in the junkyard. It came from Tugger's den. When we arrived to see what had happened, all fearing our favorite tom had been killed, we were greeted with something far worse.

Tugger stumbled from his home in Jellicle form. Blood poured from his nose and ears, trickling where the corners of his mouth had ripped from the scream. His eyes were huge and black, their golden irises stolen by the frightful visions that forced his pupils wide. His face was white. His whole body, mane to tail, leopard spots and tabby marks on his face, right down to that silly curl, were white as snow.

White as death.

Munkustrap and I ran to him, ignoring the screams of the shocked Jellicles around us. We held him as he fell, tears tinged pink running down his face. He couldn't move, but to shake, couldn't speak but to whimper. We held onto our brother for hours. He would scream on occasion, thin, hopeless screams. We held him, shooed the rest of the tribe away. He lost control of his bladder at one point. We said nothing, only holding him closer until every last tear, every whimper had left him.

I shielded us from human eyes as day came. For the whole day, we held him. He shook with seizure violence at times. At others, he was so still we feared he had died. Night came again. Suddenly, silently, Tugger stood. His eyes had returned to normal, except they too, had lost their color. He wasn't blind, but merely looked it. He said only one thing, not looking at us.

"Prepare for famine."

He fainted, and did not wake for a month.

We tried. In every fiber of my soul I know we tried. Tugger's haunting words sent us into a frenzy. We refurbished dens hidden deep in the junkyard to hold food in cold storage. We stockpiled whatever we could find. Myself and a few other of the Jellicles went into the human world in disguise and bought and stole as much food as we could find. Foolishly perhaps, we rationed ourselves to save back even more. We hunted. We scrounged. We considered food that before we would have turned our tails to. All through the spring, we tried.

Summer brought the storms. Across the country, food supplies, not yet ripe, were devastated by the fiercest storms seen in decades. The Humans called it El Niño. We called it hell. Around the world, the same thing was happening, but in our home it was the worst. A drought hit one of the major irrigation areas, drying up crops further. The Drought spread through the farmlands, killing livestock and fields alike. Times grew hard for many of our owners as 'prices' rose. Many of us were kicked out or abandoned.

Locusts on their 17 year cycle further destroyed the crops. What little survived was struck with disease brought on by the desperate efforts of the humans. Many humans, divested of their homes, made shanty towns wherever they could. One place was our junkyard. The first week, the most desperate found the food supply and gorged themselves. After that, they started hunting as well.

We Jellicles managed to escape, but our purely feline cousins were not so lucky. Event the rats we now had to rely on were being snatched up by greedy human fingers. Our kits began to grow thin. Those precious bundles of fur who had never known real need before now cried out for food in their dreams. Just weaned kits latched once more to their mothers, to find nothing but more hunger.

It was Munkustrap who finally forced us into action. One night, he led an exodus of cats from the junkyard, the city, into the thick, dry forests beyond, which none of us, not even Macavity, had ever ventured to.

Tugger had began to speak again, but no longer was he the playful, joking playboy of a tom everyone had known. He was quiet, withdrawn, and considered every question with agonizing scrutiny. He had grown thin before the rest of us, and grew thinner still, as he frequently gave up his share of the food to a kit or queen he knew needed it more, even though they all cried to see him wither away. He sustained himself with his magic, eating his own energy to help the able-bodied hunt, but we all saw him dying before us.

We lost a few of the older ones, Jennyanydots and Jellylorum among them. They were our healers, and their apprentices were only half trained. Myself and the 'dark twins' as we called Coricopat and Tantomile, took up the slack. Skimbleshanks, when he returned from his run on the train and found us, and found his mate Jenny dead, hung himself. We buried all of them with the utmost ceremony.

To keep the tribe from chaos, the three of us clamped down on the laws. Somehow, though he was the middle brother, Tugger became the judge, while me and Munkustrap were the jury. At first, we were lenient. We tried to understand. Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer, long a good line of food through their burglar skills, crossed the line once too often. They were caught stealing food from a family from another tribe, trying to feed their own kits. We took the kits. We passed judgment on the thieves. They were sentenced to death, but rather than die alone, the twins found some knives somewhere. We found them in an embrace, their hands still holding the knives in their backs.

Fall came. Food grew less and less. We were hunting on Jellicle form, now, stealing guns from humans and shooting what we could. What was left. There was little, and even a deer will only feed more than a hundred cats on rations for less than two weeks. We grew desperate. I saw several cats die from eating dirt, grass, or rocks out of hunger madness. The kits started waning. The queens started miscarrying.

Day by day, Tugger, my beloved brother, grew paler and paler, his fur growing almost translucent, his eyes growing huge and black as his frame wasted. His mane, once so wonderful, hung limp and frayed. His tail was dead. His belt had long since been boiled and cut for the leather, the raw-hide, the studs pounded to coins to fool humans while in disguise. We had done the same with each cat's collar. You could count Tugger's ribs without even trying, and yet, his magic and what little food he did take sustained him. His eyes burned with determination. He led us, he kept us alive. He terrified us, and we loved him. I knew that, slowly, the old Tugger was dying inside of this new one. I knew I had lost my best friend.

We didn't hold the Jellicle ball that year. We had nothing to sing about. We had lost too much.

Winter found us weak. We had made shelter, deep in a cave, living day to day, hand-to-mouth, often going weeks without food for ourselves, feeding the old and sick, the kits, our own strength waning. We felt confident. We had the guns. As the last migration came through, we managed to even build a tiny surplus. It wasn't near enough to keep us going, but it gave us hope. Mothers comforted their kits at night by showing them the meager pile of dried meat, saying 'there's food enough for tomorrow.' I cried myself to sleep the night I heard my own mate use this on our kits.

The weather grew too cold, too harsh, too dangerous, to go out in. We couldn't hunt. We had lost two toms and a healthy queen on the last attempt, and Munkustrap lost half his tail to frostbite. Tugger saw our strife. One night, he called me and Munkustrap to his side, deep in the cave, where only my lightning wrapped paw could provide light.

His eyes were huge. He was skeletal. Even Bombalurina, his longtime love and sometimes mate, could not bear to look at him without crying. He was still beautiful, but in so sad a fashion I got physically sick thinking about it.

Humans say they see the beauty of suffering when they look at a well rendered sculpture of that Jesus fellow, stuck to the tree, dying for them. So it was with Tugger. He was our Jesus. He was the beauty and the suffering.

Tugger raised from his seat, embracing us both. What had once been a healthy weight was now a light brush. Water dampened my shoulder. Tugger was crying.

He shook as he told us what had to be done. He shook with such force I feared he would break. He cried, but his eyes never closed. I don't think they could anymore, at that point. The tribe was dying, he told us. Something had to be done, or we would all die before the next spring. The old would go first, willing if they understood, quietly if they didn't. They could no longer provide for the tribe or themselves, and were too great a burden to bear. The injured would go next, if they could not be healed, or their injuries too great. If, after that, we still could not find another source, any cat unable to feed itself or help in the hunt would be next. This included the kits.

Munkustrap threw up. He fell to the ground, desperate not to waste nourishment. I turned away, unable to watch my once proud brother. I held Tugger. I am still unsure, but a warmth left his frail body. I think it was the last part of the old, playful Tugger. The Tugger of happier times.

Bustopher Jones, never known for his bravery, will be remembered for generations. Upon hearing the edict passed by our brother, he took the end of that giant spoon, long since sharpened into a blade for hunting, and drove it through his heart, living only long enough to say "For the little ones."

Several of the other old ones from the other tribes gave themselves up in the following weeks. Munkustrap and myself had to coerce more than a few. Asparagus, now older than his older brother, the former Old Gus, thanks to the Heaviside Layer, took the same route as his friend Skimbeshanks had months before. Old Gus followed suite, even though he was still in fighting shape.

We fed our kits, explaining what an act of love and gift of life this was even as we cracked their grandparents' or sometimes parents' bones over the fire to glean out the last bit of marrow.

The injured, those I couldn't heal, fell much the same way. Regardless, as spring approached, even they were not enough. We did not risk the diseased. They were burned.

The wailing of a mother forced to kill one child to feed the others is a sound no living creature should ever have to hear. It will tear your heart to nothing, build it back with a flood of emotion and then eat at it slowly until an empty, bleeding sore finds its' way to the surface. Every time I think back, I become sick, or faint. I struggle now to write this.

We held a lottery. All the mothers with newborns went. Etcetera, and her three first kits, were chosen. Her mind snapped, and even now, she wanders about life, doing as she is told and sitting blankly still until told to do something else. Pouncival has never stopped hating me.

We rationed the meat as long as we could, but to no avail. Victoria was picked next. With a hate filled glare to every cat present, she took her still blind son and smashed his tiny form against the cave wall, throwing his limp, bloodied body to me. She cut off her own tail, and mutilated her face and arms, feeding her two remaining children with that. Plato and she no longer speak to any one

Jemima and Admetus accepted the fate of their twins quietly, mourning and then moving on. I don't know how they managed.

My mate, though I had tried to keep her out of the drawing, came up next. Quietly, that night, I held her as she held closed the mouths of our second litter. Four little souls passed on without ever even really knowing life. In a moment of frightening clarity, she went to our first four, and picked up the smallest one. He was a tiny thing, and the starvation had not helped. She held his mouth shut as well. We both knew he would never have survived. We both had to keep the other from killing themselves that night.

Bombalurina was chosen next. She was still pregnant, but was due just before our own sacrifice would run out. It was Tugger's kit. She did not cry, nor beg for a chance. She did not go to Tugger and beg for the madness to stop. She went off quietly, telling us where to find her. Three days later, we heard a scream. When we found her, she had run herself through with Bustopher's old spoon. Somehow, in his solitude, Tugger had not known. Somehow, the news never reached him

Spring, and with it, the chance to hunt, came soon after. We emerged from the cave depleted to less than sixty. Sixty filthy, emaciated Jellicles, a few of them children, crawled from the muck of the cave into the sunlight. That first day, we pounced on anything that moved, or looked like it moved. We ate the thawed insects from trees, the moss from the ground, anything that could be food we gorged ourselves on. I doubt there was ten pounds of food.

The sunlight shone off of Tugger in such a way that his white fur sparkled. The skeletal frame blazed and distorted, and, for a moment, he truly did look like a savior. A small patch of color showed on his face, and the tiniest of smiles forced its' way to the surface. We hoped, we prayed. Had he finally come back? Was hope truly going to give us back our soul?

No. After soaking in the sun, he turned to me. Those eyes, those black eyes were penetrating, crazed, and desperate. He had surveyed the remnants. "Where is Bomba?" he asked, his voice low and hoarse from misuse. We told him, not realizing he had never known, thinking he had just forgotten due to hunger, like so many of us had forgotten so much.

He stared at me. I felt cold, colder than the winter had ever made me. He stared at Munkustrap, Coricopat, and every other cat in turn. And then he walked away. We did not see him again for years.

That night, a keening, starved wailing took over the campsite. It followed us for a week before it too finally died away. It follows many of us still in our heads as we lay down to sleep.

Famine had taken Tugger away from us, forever.


	3. Chapter 3 Madness

**Chapter 3: Madness**

Munkustrap was always the strong one. Always the one cats relied on. He wasn't the strongest Jellicle, wasn't the fastest or the smartest. He was somewhere in the middle of me, Macavity and Tugger, and the combination was magic. He had just enough timidity to make him approachable, enough pride to make him confident, and enough ruthlessness to get things done. He was brave and good looking and loved by most. Those that didn't love him liked him. After Macavity, cats figured he would take over after father died, even though they thought he had no magic.

When I came along, in my childhood, the others picked on me for my size and my strangeness. Munkustrap was always there to stare them off, then he was off, helping someone else. He taught me how to defend myself, and before I was able to, he held Tugger through the nightmares. He mated young, and stared his family early in life. Jemima was only a few years my junior, Pawdivere came soon after. He was proud of his family, and always made sure they were as happy as he was capable of making them.

Munkustrap changed after the famine. He had lost so much weight, like the rest of us, but since it was him, it seemed so much more. He never regained his muscle tone, and his skin seemed to hang from him lifelessly. The bold black of his stripes had faded to a dull grey. The silver and white had faded as well, so much so he was almost one color. The loss of half his tail had diminished him still more, even though he had never been a vain tom. His whiskers were drooping and unkempt, his muzzle grey, like an old cat. Even his green eyes seemed deadened.

He took charge of us once more, after the loss of Tugger. Under him, we became nomads, traveling by night, following any source of food, gathering what we could, and moving on when we needed to. Over the spring, our general health improved. We were still rationing food, but we managed. We were still thin, but there was flesh under the skin now. Our remaining kits could sometimes sleep without crying out for food in their dreams.

I remember distinctly one moment, when Etcetera simply _stopped_. She sat down in the middle of a travel and picked up three stones. She rocked back and forth, crooning mindless nonsense at them. Pouncival could not get her to move, and it looked as if we had to leave them behind. Munkustrap silently went over to the pale queen and took the rocks. She tried to resist, but he pushed her down, where she lay, crying. He then went to Tantomile and Electra, both of whom had taken on caring for one of Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer's kits. He took the kits, who were too young to know quite what was going on, and gave them to Etcetera. She seemed to rise a bit more to the surface, though I could see she still was lost in the depths of her mind, but she came back to herself enough to hold the kits. One on either hip, she stood, and we continued on. Munkustrap said nothing throughout the entire exchange.

During the summer of that year, Grizabella gave birth to a son. It was obvious it was Tugger's, though none of us could imagine how he could have survived. None of us had even known she was pregnant. Tugger had glamoured her to hide it, and the spell lasted after he left. Munkustrap, normally the most caring of toms, glanced once at his little brother and nephew, nodded dispassionately and then walked away. Even Jemima could barely get a reaction from him. I got words, but no emotion. His green eyes looked greyer every day.

It was mid summer when Demeter developed the limp. I tried to heal it, but it came back every day. Baffled, I tried to get her to talk to me. Her eyes grew blank when she tried to answer. I did what I could, but the limp persisted.

Alonzo lost an eye. He said it was a hunting accident, but he didn't smell of game when he came back, covered in blood. Pawdivere, normally a happy boy, even through the famine, grew silent, and watched the world through frightened eyes. Try as I might, I could not get them to say anything.

Around this time, a wayward tribe of about fifteen Jellicles joined with us. They had had a better previous year than we, but their horror was no less. One of their old ones, a large grey queen with burn marks all over her, died soon after they came to us. I stood with her in her last dying moments, holding her paw as she gasped for breath. As her eyes dimmed, she heaved forward, blood spewing from her mouth. Some hit Grizabella, who was there with me. The ancient grey queen pointed at Munkustrap, her eyes black as night. "Plague!"

We thought she was screaming of what was killing her. Grizabella shut the queen's eyes as she tried to wipe off the blood. The red stain has never left her fur.

Grizabella grew ill soon after. She could still travel, but she coughed and vomited throughout the day. She handed her son over to Etcetera's care, fearing passing it on to him. She grew thinner than she already was, and her black and grey fur began to discolor. We thought at first that it was something from the famine, or something she had picked up from her food; she'd always been good at catching frogs, even though few others could stand the taste. Soon, however, it became apparent it was something else.

We had temporarily settled in the mountains near our old home. The hunting was better here, since it was harder for the humans to reach every place. Grizabella retreated to the back of one of the caves, trying to keep away from everyone. Demeter limped to her every day to give her food. One day, as I was healing her limp yet again, she began coughing up blood. Fearing some internal injury, I scanned her as best I could, and found something I had no idea how to treat. I sent her to her den, fearing the worst. We didn't see her for a week, and we all feared she had died. Munkustrap gave no indication of her status. When she finally emerged, we hardly recognized her.

Even in our wasted states, Demeter had kept some of her looks, her fur still golden and her eyes still bright. Now, she stood before us, her fur dulling, much as her mate's was, and much of it missing, falling out in patches and clumps. She would say nothing, couldn't, because it was so hard for her to breath from the swellings on her throat. In the balding patches, oozing sores, surrounded by white were beginning to appear. Again, I did all I knew how, Coricopat and Tantomile helping me, but everything stayed much the same.

On a hunch, I checked on Grizabella. She was in much the same condition, only her eyes were crusted over with something green and foul smelling. I cleaned her up the best I could, not thinking of the danger to myself. She had gone blind in one eye, and noticed a sore spreading over her ear. She'd be half deaf if she survived, I knew.

Over the course of the next few days, Alonzo, Pawdivere, Jemima, Etcetera, Admetus, myself, and several other cats either got worse or developed the symptoms. We instructed the kits to cover their faces, to stay away as much as possible, but still, some of

them caught it.

Soon, the entire tribe was ill, all except Munkustrap. He watched over us, helping me and the twins feed the worst off, speaking little, his eyes dead of emotion, his body tense. Only through the fact that he was my brother could I tell that something was troubling him deep down. It was just me and him doing the hunting, and what little we caught we had to spread thin. Some of the decisions we had to make were almost impossible. I watched one night as Munkustrap quietly broke Cassandra's neck. She was the first one that I had been unable to treat, and I knew she was dying. A spasm, unlike anything I had ever felt before, snapped through my body as her heart stopped beating. Munkustrap seemed to sense this, and turned to me. In that moment, his eyes were back to the way they had been in happier times, green as grass and bright. Silently, he kissed Cassandra on the forehead, and walked away. I followed him silently that night, spying on him as I suppressed the cough and the spasm's left over pain. Dark spots fell on the ground behind him, and only later did I realize they were tears.

He went to his den, calling Demeter to him. I saw the glimmer of hope in her eyes as she saw his face return somewhat to normal. Then I saw the fear. Confused, I hid myself with magic, and saw Pawdivere in the opposite corner, staring up at his father and hugging his knees. Then I saw it, and understood his fear.

The light in Munkustrap's eyes shifted, and his eyes unfocused, something savage I had never seen before in them. Demeter blanched in fear, and curled up into a ball, going limp as my brother fell on her. I could do nothing. I knew if I did, Munkustrap would kill me, and possible them as well.

Though they were mates, I could call what happened next nothing more than simple rape. I looked away, ashamed I could do nothing. I had seen the subtleties of Munkustrap's magic at work, and I knew he was the stronger of the two of us. I could only watch in horror as he beat her senseless, paying slightly more attention to her one leg, the one Macavity had scarred long ago. He then turned on his son, who cowered against the blows and cried. Then, in the middle of it all, Munkustrap froze. I did the same, fearing he'd sensed my presence, but that was not the case.

The strange light left his eyes, and they returned to their once normal green. He looked at his mate and son, cowering together in the corner of his den, and fell to his knees. He vomited, choking and weeping, crying out his sorrow for what he had done. He grabbed his head and howled, screaming at himself. "_Why? WHY WON'T THIS END?!" _ Demeter limped to him, followed by Pawdivere, and they held him, just as he and myself had held Tugger all those months before. Slowly, the color and light left his eyes, and his mate and son led him to bed, where he fell asleep, muttering "sorry…so sorry…"

I managed to get Munkustrap alone one day, before we got the kills back to the cave. It took me a long time, but finally, I forced him to talk to me. His magic was getting stronger, and he couldn't control it. Beneath that, I sensed something frightening stirring in the depths of his mind. All the dead, everyone we had been forced to coerce into death, appeared in his waking dreams, and I felt the scars it was leaving on him. He wanted nothing more than to die, but knew he couldn't. He told me, beneath the trees, that he didn't understand why he had not yet grown ill. I told him that I did not know. It was the truth, but something snagged my attention, and I couldn't help but wonder, after that day.

After my discoveries, I tried to ease the pain in my brother's mind. The circumstances and his magic would have driven another cat mad, but Munkustrap had always been the strong one. I failed. It was doomed from the start. How could I not fail, when every death I felt sent me into spasms, each one more intense than the last; when every memory if the things I had forced cats I knew, cats who's knees I had bounced on in kitten-hood, the things I had forced them to do to feed the rest of the tribe. The cost of making the decision of which cat would go next weighed just as much on my mind, and try as I might, I could not dissolve my brother's pain.

I'm not sure where he was when it happened. I will never be sure, because no one else saw him either. All the cats were in the main cave, trying to get some fresh air, trying to get lethargic kits to play. A few looked almost dead. Tumblebrutus had lost sight in one eye, the one with the patch over it, and most if his fur. My mate crooned over our remaining son, cleaning the sores on his body as best she could, trying to stop his thin crying. We had thinned out even more, but no one from the new tribe had died yet. We all assumed the illness was part of the cannibalism we'd been forced into the previous winter. Listless cats lay in family groups or with friends, wondering about who knew what.

A scream jerked them out of their stupor. I've never been sure if it was mine or hers. I fell, I know, and I remember the pain, the fire in my bones and the glass shard pressure in my brain as the seizure took me over. When I came to I knew the cause. Someone had died.

Demeter lay limp near her den. Pawdivere and Jemima hunched over her, wailing. Black blood ran from her lips. I knew she was the one. I crawled to her, trying to see, trying to make sure. Then I heard the howl.

I was knocked aside as Munkustrap dove to his mate. He clutched her limp form to him, trying to wake her, screaming incomprehensively. He set her down, and before I could stop him, sent a wave of magic into her body. Nothing happened.

Wave after wave of power left my brother, and with every decrease in power, color left him faster and faster. Only his eyes shone. They glowed frightfully greener as he depleted himself.

Finally, it was gone. Munkustrap had managed, not to bring Demeter back to life, but to completely destroy himself. Magic, a slight residual glow still emanating from his mate's dead body, had completely left him. His scent had changed, and I knew it would never come back. Suddenly, more about him than just his color changed. Violently, blood spewed from his mouth, and as he coughed, we saw what his increasing powers had protected him from. The fur on his back fell away, and before our eyes, sores the size of faces oozed into existence, pus and blood dripping from them to the fast depleting fur on his chest. The sores spread, covering half his face and large patches of his body. I saw the bones of his skull through his thinning mane. He flung back, writhing in agony, trying to find some way to end it. He looked like something we should have buried, his suddenly taken over form was so intense. In that moment, I realized what the old queen had meant, in pointing at him. He was the source. Something inside him had carried this, and spread it on to the whole tribe. Then I remembered. He was the first to take the meat, the one who saved everyone else by taking that first bite. His mind, and the subconscious torture it inflicted on his magic was punishing him with this illness, and it had lashed out at those he was closest to first. I watched my brother in horror for the second time in as many weeks. He thrashed about on the floor, shrieking and yowling in agony, ripping fur and flesh from his body in an attempt to end the pain. He looked straight at me.

His eyes glowed with pain and fire. He knew. Munkustrap knew he had caused all of our suffering. Knew he had caused Demeter's and so many other's end. I saw the instant he left his mind, the older, protective brother with the mellow voice and kind word for his freaky little sibling vanished as he looked at me. I fell again, but the pain was distant, and the eye contact didn't break. I felt Munkustrap push at my mind, what was left of him holding me mentally, apologizing, as it left.

Munkustrap's eyes turned grey. Completely grey; flat, without light. The eyes of the dead. Terrified, Jemima and Pawdivere held each other, scrambling away from their father and their mother's corpse. Munkustrap stood, staring at nothing, a sickly stench and a chill air following him. He left the cave, bits of fur and blood following him, chunks of dying skin left behind where he had lain.

Plague had ended the third brother.


	4. Chapter 4 Transformations

**Chapter 4. Transformations**

_It has been four years since Munkustrap went mad. _The weather patterns changed, the world has grown brighter for now. I took over leadership of the tribe, moving us back into the city as soon as I could. We began holding the Jellicle Ball again, though now, most of the old songs are done as a theatre production. Myself, Grizabella, and Macavity are the only ones left alive out of the old way. Tugger is represented by someone in costume, at least until his son, the spitting image of him in attitude and looks, is old enough to take on his father's reputation, which I know he will.

I watch the kits who survived those two terrible years. Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer are born again in their own twins. Etcetera regained her mind a year ago, with the birth of her son. Pouncival still hates me. Victoria and Plato still rarely speak, but their kits are friendly enough. When the kits choose their names, I know that all of the ones we lost will be remembered. The tales we've told and the personalities of the children make sure of that. Tugger's daughter, who he had with Bombalurina three years before everything, is the image of her mother. I hope, deeper than anything, that things will return to normal. I know they will not.

Cats began calling me 'Master Mistoffelees' when I took over the tribe. I had two forms then. I would go about everyday as Quaxo; there was a lot of white on this coat, and one of my eyes was yellow. Then, when I used my magic extensively, I was Mistoffelees, nearly all black, with the light of the Heaviside Layer sparkling beneath the coat. Over the two years, I stayed as Quaxo, it was simply easier to only use my magic when I needed to. I didn't notice, in the dim light and dimmer spirit of those days, that the white began to disappear from my coat. It was slow, but when I did finally realize, it was too late. Excepting the light from the Heaviside Layer, the coats were the same. Even both my eyes were blue. I have noticed, according to the cats I have confided in, that the transformation became more obvious after I started having the seizures. I still have them, every time a cat dies. During these I loose control of my magic, and forget who I am, and after each one, it is harder and harder to come back to myself. My children harbor a secret fear for me. My mate thinks I do not notice when she cries herself to sleep. She knows the truth.

I have noticed of late that even the white patch on my chest is growing smaller, and I fear what happens when the black reaches my face. But I know the cause, now, and am trying to fight it.

Once I realized that I no longer could be Quaxo, I hid myself away for a time. Grizabella found me. She had survived those days with me, and we had somehow become friends. She knew where to look. We began speaking, and somehow, the conversation turned to Father, and the days Grizabella had with him.

Apparently, Old Deuteronomy was near death when he chose Grizabella, and she convinced the cats of the tribe to send their leader to the Heaviside Layer. She told me that he had been the first cat to return old, merely gaining the lifetime, and not the youth that the Layer usually granted.

_'"Haven't you ever wondered, about the alumnus of heaven and hell part?"' she asked me. "The everlasting cat presides over both."_

_Old Deuteronomy told her what he had seen, what the Everlasting Cat predicted for the tribe's future if Macavity were to take over. This was before the war, when Macavity was still amongst our number. Old Deuteronomy had pleaded, begging his case to the everlasting cat, who thought it was Deuteronomy's time. One more life time, to lead the tribe in prosperity and produce a more suitable heir, and the everlasting cat could have what ever he wanted from Deuteronomy himself. The everlasting cat had agreed, without naming his price, and Deuteronomy had returned to the mortal life. He saw one son go mad, but never guessing, died happily, knowing he had sired not one, but three more suitable sons._

I felt the fear well up in my chest as I realized what the price for old Deuteronomy's last life of leadership had been. Grizabella nodded, and hugged me gently. War and famine, plague and now death, all were driving the four heirs of Deuteronomy to madness. We were the only four different, the only four with magic. And we were all the price. I cannot blame father, though. Who knows what the everlasting cat showed him? Who knows but him, what horrors could have befallen the tribe had Macavity taken over? Grizabella told me of a human legend, where four heralds of The End come in the same forms as our madnesses.

_I hear Macavity's laughter, Tugger's keening, and Munkustrap's howls in my sleep. I wonder, how long can I hold off my own fall? How long until I can no longer come back to myself, and the blackness of death takes over my form? How long until my screams join them? The seizures come at random, some from the death of a cat nearby, others, from the memory of those two years, overdue symptoms catching up to me. Already, I have noticed that even my eyes are no longer the light cat-blue they used to be. I have told my mate to leave me before they become too much darker. I know she will not, but I must try. I can only wonder at how much time I have left._


End file.
